Multimedia files are becoming increasingly popular forms of electronic files. Such multimedia files may contain such rich content as video (e.g., movies, films, etc.), and/or audio (e.g., music, songs, audio-books, etc.), as examples. The content of multimedia files may be presented to users via a media player application executing on a processor-based device, such as a personal computer (PC), laptop computer, mobile telephone, portable media player devices (e.g., iPod, etc.). Various media player applications are well known for reading multimedia files and presenting their content to a user, including as examples MICROSOFT WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER™ developed by Microsoft Corporation, QUICKTIME™ developed by Apple computer, and REAL PLAYER™ developed by Real Networks. Also, various multimedia file formats have been developed, including as examples such well-known video compression formats as MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group, including MPEG-1, MPEG2, and/or MPEG-4, as examples), 14.261, H.262, H.263, H.264, AVS, Bink, Dirac, Indeo, MJPEG, Real Network's RealVideo format, Theora, VC-1, VP6, VP7, .WMV (Windows Media Video), and QUICKTIME's .MOV format; and including as examples such well-known audio compression formats as MPEG-1 Layer 3 (MP3), MPEG-1 Layer 2, AAC, HE-AAC, G.711, G.722, G.722.1, G.722.2, G.723, G.723.1, G.726, G.728, G.729, G.729.1, G.729a, AC3, Apple Lossless, ATRAC, FLAC, iLBC, Monkey's Audio, μ-law, Musepack, Nellymoser, Real Network's RealAudio format, SHN, Speex, Vorbis, WayPack, WMA, and TAK. Further, in some instances, the multimedia file may be implemented using a media container format such as one of the well-known media container formats of 3GP, ASF, AVI (Audio Video Interleave), DMF, DPX, FLV, Matroska, MP4, MXF, NUT, Ogg, Ogg Media, QuickTime, RealMedia, VOB, AIFF, AU, and WAV.
Often, a user may desire to preview content of a multimedia file. For instance, a user may desire to preview content of a given multimedia file in order to determine whether the user desires to obtain (e.g., purchase, download, etc.) the multimedia file, play the multimedia file, and/or take some other action regarding the multimedia file (e.g., store to a portable player for later access by the user, etc.). As an example, a user may have access to many movie files, and the user may desire to view previews of certain ones of the movie files to determine one or more of the movie files that the user desires to perform some action on, such as watch the movie, store the movie file to a portable player for later viewing, etc.
Traditionally, such preview capability has been undesirably limited. In some instances, a separate preview file may be created for a multimedia file. For instance, movie trailers are often created as advertisements for a corresponding movie, wherein such a movie trailer normally includes a series of selected shots/frames from the movie being advertised. Since the purpose of the trailer generally is to attract an audience to the film, these excerpts are usually drawn from the most exciting, funny, or otherwise noteworthy parts of the film, but in abbreviated form. Some trailers use special shoot footage, which is material that has been created specifically for advertising purposes and does not appear in the actual movie. Such a movie trailer file may be created and available for access/viewing by a user.
However, such use of separate preview files is often not an optimal solution. One drawback to such use of separate preview files is that the separate preview files require additional storage space for storing such preview files in addition to storing the corresponding actual multimedia file (e.g., movie, etc.). Also, complexity associated with managing storage of such separate preview files may arise. Additionally, difficulty may arise in a user identifying a corresponding multimedia file for a given preview file. That is, in the event that a user views a preview file and determines based on such preview file that the user desires to take some action on the actual multimedia file that he/she has previewed (e.g., the full movie file, etc.), the user may have difficulty identifying and/or finding the separate corresponding multimedia file in order to take the desired action. The management of the user interface for aiding a user in identifying the multimedia file that corresponds to a separate preview file may become undesirably complex. Finally, the given preview file contains fixed content and does not allow the user to request presentation of additional portions of the corresponding multimedia file. Instead, the user is restricted to merely being presented the pre-defined content that is contained in the separate preview file.
Another technique that may be employed by users for attempting to preview a multimedia file is through the use of a seek slider, fast forward, rewind, or other playback controls of a media player application. For instance, during playback of a movie, many media player applications enable a user to jump to different portions of the movie through use of a seek slider, fast forward, rewind, or other playback control interface. However, such jumping around through a multimedia file (e.g., movie) being presented to a user often may fail to provide the user with a useful/valuable experience. For instance, the user may jump to portions of a movie that fail to provide the user with good preview information from which the user can sufficiently appreciate the content of the movie. For example, many movies include portions during which actors are singing, and if a user continuously jumps to portions of the movie at which such a song is being presented, the user may not obtain a good preview from which the user can understand/appreciate what the movie is about. Thus, such jumping technique undesirably relies upon the user's ability for jumping through a multimedia file being presented in order to generate some type of preview, and the technique produces undesirably random results with regards to the quality of preview that may be obtained by a given user.
Accordingly, a desire exists for improved techniques for previewing multimedia files.